Talk:Theodore Roosevelt's Vice President (Southern Victory)
Okay--is McKenna sitting VP or running mate? Perhaps Rose changed running mates for different elections? Turtle Fan 05:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC) Sitting. TR 15:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC) Maybe that's why he's so fat, then. He should stand up and exercise. Turtle Fan 16:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC) I was inclined to think McKenna was Joseph McKenna. However, he wasn't very fat. TR 17:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC) I guess it is possible he was butterflied into a different lifestyle in this timeline, but you know how I feel about that sort of retcon. On the other hand, you also know I'm terribly, terribly interested in chasing down any leads about historical cameos. Turtle Fan 17:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC) :Well, at any rate, our ability to write about either Kennan or McKenna is completely compromised as they are just too glaring an inconsistency. Other than suggesting that perhaps Flora, the POV, got their names mixed up in her head, there isn't any rational way to pick one and finesse it, as with FDR. TR 18:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC) ::Fine by me. Turtle Fan 23:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC) :::Didn't mean to bump this. I just didn't want a red link to Karl II. TR 00:35, 1 January 2009 (UTC) ::::That's what she said. Turtle Fan 16:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC) Wild Speculation Could McKenna be McKinley? He was thin as a young man but was running to fat by the end, and he could have run a lot farther if he'd lived well into the twentieth century (which is another problem--74 on Inauguration Day in 1917, when he was Kennan, 77 during the '20 campaign--though old age could make him an amiable non-entity. At least he'd have no Presidential aspirations of his own.) TR was his Vice President, of course, so it's sort of a "LaFollette Defeats Dewey" instance of tweedom (though surely if HT wanted to do that, he'd have been more explicit about McKinley's identity). McKenna sounds kind of like McKinley--though it's pretty hard to imagine a political animal like Flora not knowing the name of the sitting Vice President. I mean, I only watch from the sidelines, but I certainly know who Joe Breyer is. And McKinley was amiable as far as comparable genocidaires go. Hard to imagine him in the Oval Office railing against that insufferable bastard Fegelein. FEGELEIN! FEGELEIN! FEGELEIN! I know the answer to my question is "not enough information" and that we'd never be able to write an article about McKinley on these grounds in a million years. But I did come up with the above and felt like giving a little reign to my wild speculation. I guess a Donut thread would be a more appropriate venue, but what the hey. Turtle Fan 05:09, June 26, 2010 (UTC) :Somehow I've overlooked until just now that HT does supply McKenna with the first name of "Walter". He appears to be completely fictional, or HT found a VERY obscure politician. :Anyway, I'm ok with leaving the article as is, or creating a Walter McKenna redirect to the Minor Fictional Characters in the American Empire Trilogy, moving the substance of what HT says in B&I, and keeping the literary comment regarding the Kennan/McKenna inconsistency. Either way. TR (talk) 06:51, December 2, 2014 (UTC) :::Heh.Eljuma (talk) 13:52, December 2, 2014 (UTC) McKenna? It seems to me that the title of this article is a little cumbersome. I think "Walter McKenna" should be regarded as the character's "real" name for wiki article purposes, with Kennan as the junior synonym. Maybe a three-line in-universe description, followed by a lit comm saying "also known as Kennan" and link to Inconsistencies, then noting that Walter McKenna might be Turtledove's in-joke to William McKinley. (It's astounding that Turtledove usually seems to be a genius about obscure historical trivia, but once in a while makes an amateur's goof like "Kaiser Friedrich I" or the year of Maximilian's crowning, or cops out by neglecting to provide basic information on who is Charles XI, Max 2, or Pedro IV.) But the jist is, I think it would be better to retitle the article Walter McKenna for convenience.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 06:15, November 4, 2015 (UTC) :I'd be all right with calling him Walter McKenna. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:31, November 4, 2015 (UTC) ::Yeah, we probably should just do that. TR (talk) 19:36, November 4, 2015 (UTC)